this monumental book is a fascinating analysis and documentation of the development of urban sanitation infrastructure in the us . It takes one through an illuminating journey spanning almost 500 years from the urban epidemics of the early 1500s to the debates around waste incinerators in the 1980s and beyond. Seen through the eyes of an urban historian, it has immense contemporary relevance to the emerging Indian urban landscape. City planners here could learn many lessons about